Browse sourced findings, connection research, and open questions. Each entry retains the status and qualifications recorded with the research. A connection research note is not automatically a verified network-map relationship.
Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary subsets + current reporting verified. Later Contours→WFF increment, full Way Back Montana allocation and common-control questions remain unresolved; no same-dollar tracing or centralized command established.
Current 2026 reporting and primary records extend the Contours→Western Futures→Way Back architecture beyond Idaho into a multistate political-support network, while still falling short of proving common legal control. Inside Elections' August 2026 investigation, based on tax and FEC records, reports that super PAC efforts supporting independent Montana Senate candidate Seth Bodnar received aggregate funding across the relevant PACs from Contours ($2.6M), W…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Official APOC verifies Nunnelly and Dupré each gave Unite America $125K in 2024; current reporting documents Carroll's large Unite America giving and Unite America's Idaho role. Idaho earmarking or donor control is not established.
A donor-level crossline around Unite America can now be documented without relying on the unresolved 'Toolbox' identity claim. An official Alaska Public Offices Commission disclosure filed June 10, 2026 by Unite America PAC identifies Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré as direct true-source donors of $125,000 each on June 25, 2024. The same filing provides a long donor list supporting Unite America's Alaska spending. Separately, current Montana reporting based…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CANDIDATE SUPPORT + COMMITTEE AUTHORITY + BILL OUTCOMES VERIFIED. Industry direction or quid pro quo is not established; Guthrie's immigration record is mixed.
Sen. Jim Guthrie is now a strong case study for the new alignment audit because candidate support, industry interest, platform policy and institutional authority all intersect in one race. Idaho Education News reported that Idaho Prosperity Fund spent $72,392 supporting Guthrie in the 2026 District 28 Republican primary; Idaho Liberty PAC spent another $72,771 supporting him, while Defend and Protect Idaho and other PACs also backed him. Idaho Capital Sun …
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY STRATEGY VERIFIED: IDI-PAC explicitly targets decisive GOP primaries to advance dairy interests, oppose contrary candidates, and develop industry leadership. Corruption/control not established.
Primary Idaho Dairymen's Association material makes the PAC's strategy unusually explicit and substantially sharpens this branch. In its Q1 2022 Idaho Dairy Focus, IDA explained that because Idaho is dominated by the Republican Party, the May Republican primary is the decisive election in most legislative districts; it noted that many November races are effectively uncontested. The same publication says IDI-PAC was formed by dairy producers, processors and…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/campaign-finance/reporting crossline verified at organization and role level; same-person CAP↔Idaho Liberty↔GS identity strongly corroborated but underlying Idaho registrations should still be captured directly. No Article IV→Idaho Liberty money flow or coordination established.
A new crossline connects Article IV's Idaho grantmaking to the previously tracked Little/Idaho Victory/Idaho Liberty political network through personnel rather than a proven money transfer between the two systems. Conservative Accountability Project Inc. (CAP), Boise, reports Robert Jones as president, Billie Jean Siddoway as treasurer and Guy Hurlbutt as secretary. Article IV reported a $25,000 general-support grant to CAP in FY2024; CAP reported $38,000 …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG ISSUE-LEVEL ALIGNMENT FINDING: dairy economic interest, major PAC support, Guthrie committee action, and GOP E-Verify/school-choice positions are independently documented. Donor causation, coordination and quid pro quo are not established.
A retrospective alignment audit of Sen. Jim Guthrie identifies a concrete policy-interest convergence without proving quid pro quo. Idaho Dairymen's Association states that about 90% of on-dairy jobs are filled by foreign-born labor and its member-approved immigration policy supports legal status for existing agricultural workers, year-round agricultural visa access, and government—not employers—bearing ultimate status-verification responsibility. In a Feb…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Official/current records verify Kreizenbeck's SEP Idaho policy role, Judicial Council membership and 2024 GOP precinct election. Little appointment is contemporaneously reported; no cross-role coordination or funder influence established.
Jason B. Kreizenbeck, identified by Secure Elections Project as its Idaho Legislative & Policy Team member through Lobby Idaho, also occupies multiple formal Idaho political/institutional roles. The Idaho Judicial Council's official bio says Kreizenbeck was appointed to the Council on July 1, 2023. The Council states that its non-attorney public members are appointed by the Governor and subject to Senate approval; current state records list Kreizenbeck as …
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IPF endorsement + McCann votes + GOP E-Verify policy are documented. IACI/IPF motive for endorsing McCann remains unproved.
A concrete issue-level alignment case appears in Idaho Prosperity Fund's 2026 support for Lori McCann. Contemporary reporting identifies McCann as an IPF-endorsed candidate in the District 6 Senate primary. Separately, Idaho Capital Sun reports that, while serving in the House, McCann voted against HB 700 (prohibiting unlawful employment of unauthorized workers) and HB 704 (mandatory E-Verify). The Idaho Republican State Central Committee's accepted 2025 R…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: COUNTEREVIDENCE VERIFIED: documented GOP organizational participation coexists with an issue-level platform disagreement. Bad-faith motive cannot be inferred from divergence alone.
The alignment audit should preserve counterevidence alongside policy divergence. Rep. Ben Fuhriman is a useful example. He opposed 2025 HB 93, a parental-choice tax-credit policy consistent with the Idaho GOP platform's stated support for money following students and private/parochial options; Defend and Protect Idaho and the Idaho Dairy Industry PAC later supported him in the 2026 Republican primary. However, separate Idaho GOP records show Fuhriman parti…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY AGREEMENT VERIFIED: representative Contours 527 grant was recipient-solicited, general support, not activity-earmarked, and expressly left subsequent decisions to the recipient. Political purpose exists; operational direction is not shown.
The representative Contours→Fight For Us PAC 527 grant agreement adds important counterevidence against overstating donor control. The July 8, 2025 letter says Contours' $50,000 grant was in response to Fight For Us PAC's June 2025 solicitation and was intended to assist the PAC with electoral advocacy for independent candidates for public office. The letter expressly describes the donation as a general-support grant not earmarked or targeted to a specific…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION VERIFIED. Structural effect: party primaries abolished; all voters choose top four; RCV only in general. Republican-exclusive nomination gatekeeping would end. Sponsor/funder motive remains unproven without additional evidence.
For influence analysis, Idaho's 2024 Proposition 1 should be described precisely. The official Attorney General/Secretary of State summary states the measure would abolish Idaho's party primaries, place all candidates for covered offices on one top-four primary ballot, permit all voters to vote among all candidates regardless of party affiliation, and advance the four highest vote-getters to the general election. Candidates could list an affiliation but wo…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: TARGET/FUNDING OVERLAP VERIFIED; shared Robert Jones identity is strongly corroborated but still needs direct primary closure. No Article IV→Liberty flow or coordination established.
A new retrospective crossline links two legally separate Idaho political-influence lanes at the level of targets and leadership names. Article IV's FY2024 grant records show a $25,000 general-support grant to Boise-based Conservative Accountability Project (CAP). CAP's FY2024 filing reports only $38,000 in total revenue and identifies Robert Jones as president. CAP's own issue-advocacy pages attack Brian Lenney, Tammy Nichols, Glenneda Zuiderveld and Dan F…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY/OFFICIAL + CAMPAIGN-FINANCE REPORTING VERIFIED cross-cycle candidate-selection pattern. Directional motive (e.g. shifting GOP policy left/right) remains unproved and must be tested using candidate records and donor/recipient strategy evidence.
Applying the new influence/use methodology reveals a concrete cross-cycle pattern around Way Back PAC that should be tested further rather than treated as ideological proof. In 2024, campaign-finance reporting based on Idaho Secretary of State records identified Way Back PAC as a $250,000 donor to Idahoans for Open Primaries. Idaho's official ballot summary states Proposition 1 would have abolished party primaries, replaced them with a single top-four prim…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: SOURCED FIRST-PASS ALIGNMENT AUDIT: several prior branches show direct issue-level alignment/divergence with current party platforms; dairy/labor is presently better classified as economic-interest lobbying. No overall ideological ranking, bad-faith motive or coordinated-control conclusion.
First retrospective alignment pass under the standing methodology shows several issue-specific patterns that are stronger than generic party labels. (1) Election structure: the 2024 Idahoans for Open Primaries/Prop 1 branch, funded heavily by Article IV, Unite America and Way Back PAC, sought to abolish party primaries and replace them with a top-four primary plus ranked-choice general election. That structure directly conflicts with the current 2026 Idaho…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY IACI MATERIAL VERIFIED: business lobbying, coordinated advocacy, PAC candidate support and industry-policy work are documented; broader public-interest effects remain issue-specific.
IACI is a high-value node for the IdahoCabal influence audit because its own materials openly define the organization as Idaho's most effective business lobby and say it represents roughly 300 employers seeking to shape state policy. Its current board includes government/public-affairs, legal, tax, corporate-affairs and executive representatives from major employers and industries including utilities, health systems and insurers, banks, mining, agriculture…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary/IRS and current organizational records verify 1630/WFF funding and Kreizenbeck's Idaho legislative-policy role. Idaho bill-specific activity and grant-to-lobbyist dollar tracing remain unresolved.
The Secure Elections Project creates a direct national-funding-to-Idaho-policy personnel route. Sixteen Thirty Fund's primary Schedule I filings report grants to Secure Elections Project of $2.03M in 2022, $75,000 in 2023 and $100,000 in 2024, totaling $2.205M across those three years. Secure Elections Project's FY2024 recipient filing separately reports $100,000 from Sixteen Thirty Fund and $50,000 from Western Futures Fund among its disclosed FY2024 fund…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CORRECTED: Federal C00915595 has verified Contours/1630/WFF funding and Blue Moon payments. Way Back's $75K same-name payee is NOT yet linked to C00915595 because a separate South Dakota GTW PAC exists and previously received Way Back money.
Government That Works PAC (federal FEC committee C00915595, Washington, DC) is independently a significant shared recipient/professional-services node across organizations already central to the Western Futures/Way Back investigation. Its 2025 FEC filing reports Contours receipts of $650,000 on Aug. 19, $250,000 on Oct. 29 and $2,000,000 on Dec. 23 ($2.9M total); $15,000 from Western Futures Fund on Oct. 3; $300,000 from America Votes on Oct. 24; Global Im…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG CONCENTRATED-BENEFIT AUDIT CASE: IACI member ties, lobbying, tax benefits and explicit tax-shift concerns are documented. Corruption or sole causation is not established.
The data-center policy fight is a strong example of the IdahoCabal concentrated-benefit audit because IACI's member representation, lobbying position, tax policy and cost-shift mechanism can be identified directly. IACI's current board includes a Meta public-policy manager and Micron's director of U.S. government affairs. Idaho's data-center incentive exempts qualifying facilities from sales/use tax on eligible equipment and construction materials if they …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY/CONTEMPORANEOUS SOURCES verify IACI policy advocacy + IPF election role + GS Strategy financial/research crossline. Candidate-selection causation or improper coordination not established.
The alignment audit now shows a concrete institutional integration inside IACI rather than merely parallel business lobbying and election spending. IACI's own materials say the Idaho Prosperity Fund (IPF) was created to fulfill IACI's campaign/election-engagement mission and that the IPF board selects candidates for independent-expenditure support. IACI testimonials say members use the association to coordinate advocacy when legislative or regulatory solut…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CURRENT FINANCE + CANDIDATE CONVERGENCE VERIFIED: Victory/Liberty and IPF independently spent heavily for Guthrie; shared corporate donors exist. Coordination is not established.
The 2026 Guthrie race provides a stronger current example of business-funded election influence operating through two legally separate PAC lanes. Transparency USA's current Idaho Victory Fund aggregation reports approximately $703,007 in contributions and $1.103M in expenditures, including $615,000 paid to Idaho Liberty PAC. Major Victory Fund contributors include St. Luke's Health Plan ($50K), Micron Technology ($25K), Idaho Power ($20K), Idaho Automobile…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary/IRS-derived 2024 grants verified: Sixteen Thirty→Civic Truth $1.34M and Civic Truth→WFF $450K. Same-dollar pass-through or earmarking not established.
A previously known Western Futures funder can now be traced one layer farther upstream. Sixteen Thirty Fund's primary FY2024 Schedule I reports a $1,340,000 grant to Civic Truth Coalition Inc. (EIN 99-3438435) for civil rights, social action and advocacy. Civic Truth Coalition's own FY2024 filing reports $3.33M total revenue and no salaries/payroll, with Cameron Campbell as its sole listed president at $0 compensation. Its Schedule I reports five major gra…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: FEC/FEC-DERIVED + CURRENT REPORTING VERIFIED: WFF-related 1861 activity, Way Back Taylor spending, and Progressive Vet $47.5K disbursement align around one candidate endpoint. Coordination/control not established; raw 1861 receipt split still pending.
A current Kansas case further documents how Western Futures Fund and Way Back PAC can appear around the same candidate through different legal/financial channels without proving coordination. The 1861 Initiative (FEC C00945733), a Kansas super PAC registered April 1, 2026, reported $69,300 in FEC 'Other Receipts' through June 30. Current FEC-derived transaction data identify a $59,300 itemized payment associated with Western Futures Fund in the committee's…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/primary records verify WFF→CaPA Ed $500K, 1630→CaPA Ed $1.05M, CaPA Ed→CaPA $8.169M and CaPA→CVIEF $60K. Same-dollar tracing and Idaho donor selection remain unproved.
A same-year 2024 multi-entity funding route now connects both Western Futures Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund to the Clean and Prosperous America structure, which separately made a direct Idaho grant. Western Futures Fund's FY2024 grant records report a $500,000 general-purpose grant to Clean and Prosperous America Education Fund (EIN 93-2263138). Sixteen Thirty Fund's primary FY2024 Schedule I separately reports $1,050,000 to the same Education Fund. The Edu…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY IRS RESPONSE VERIFIED: Contours classifies 527 grants as indirect political-campaign activity and describes candidate/public-official alignment as a selection criterion. No Idaho-specific direction established.
Contours' Sept. 4, 2025 IRS response provides unusually direct primary-source language about how it selects and accounts for grants to political organizations. Contours states that it makes two grant types: grants to 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations and grants to Section 527 political organizations. It says the 527 grants are intended to constitute indirect political campaign activity rather than social-welfare spending. For 527 grants, Contours says…
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